The Third One
by 0torno
Summary: Feanor dies.


"Stop."

He swallows, carefully like it hurts him, and his fingers twitch as if seeking something concrete to hold on to. His voice is weak - weak like I have never heard it before - but the commandment in it is undeniable. I signal to the elves carrying the stretcher to stop.

There is fear in their eyes as they glance back nervously along the pass to where Angband's rocky peaks and black reek conceal the stars, and red lightning dances ominously in the atmosphere. They do as I tell them without question, though, and atar pushes himself into a sitting position, face white with pain, and swings his legs off the stretcher.

He closes his eyes and his mouth opens slightly, allowing a trickle of blood to make it way across his waxen skin and fall to the ground; strangely vulnerable, diminished, this is not my father - this is not the spirit of fire who taught me to wield a sword and how to write, not the spirit of fire who so often yelled at me over a debate or kissed my scraped knees and wiped away my tears. This is not my father. But then his eyes open and the searing steel I see there is frighteningly reassuring. He stands.

His weakened legs stumble when he takes a step, but Atarinkë and Carnistir support him before he can fall. The stretcher-bearers retreat, still casting doubtful looks over their shoulders towards Thangorodrim.

He walks. Each faltering step must cause him agony - a trail of dripping blood follows his movement - but he does not flinch. The hard line of his mouth and burning purpose in his eyes give me a sick sort of strength; for if he can be so driven as his life seems almost to seep away, one such as I might accomplish much. Even unto the fulfilling of our oath, perhaps, and laying of its influence to rest.

He stops on the edge of the precipice, back to the void, still supported between Atarinkë and Carnistir; stands tall and proud and dangerous even as he cannot stay upright under his own power.

"My sons," he says. "Swear to me you will hold your oath in honor for the memory of your father, and you grandfather, and the beauty that is lost."

"We swear, atar."

It is Curufinwë who speaks, although the rest of us murmur in agreement. His voice trembles with repressed rage, and maybe confusion; because my father speaks as if he is dying, and Fëanáro cannot be dying; he is insurmountable and eternal, elemental as the fury that heats all of Arda.

He raises his chin defiantly, ignoring the blood making its way down his face from a gash in his forehead. His eyes flash fire.

"Be he foe or friend," he says, and his mouth is tight and pale, teeth clenched. "Be he foul or clean, brood of Morgoth or bright Vala-"

I join in, lips numb as the words rise unbidden to my tongue, leaden and yet somehow light as though they are something innate in me - a pattern so repeated in thought that it cannot help but be voiced. My brothers' words rise around me but I do not look at their faces. I can hear the difference in their voices: Makalaurë's elegant intensity, Tyelkormo brazen confidence, the rough sound of Carnistir's barely-suppressed rage. Atarinkë's cold tones, almost emotionless unless you know the look on his face. The dual sound of Ambarussa, two voices twisting in and out until each is indistinguishable from the other.

We reach the end and atar shoves the supporting arms off of him and stands on his own, though it must cost him much.

"I curse the Morgoth," he growls, voice growing in fevered intensity and volume as he goes on, "For now and ever more! I curse him to despair and _death_ at the hands of the just! I curse him to suffer in darkest agony a thousand fold for what he took from me! _The Morgoth will_ _fall beneath our feet_ _and tremble in his fortress at the sounding of our horns at his gates!_" he roars.

He punches the air with a fist, caught up in righteous fury, and my heart rises in me, infected by the characteristic exhilaration that he seems to impart so easily with naught but a few words. I raise my arm to the sky, sword drawn, and a battle cry escapes from my lips. I hear my brothers draw their own blades, crying a challenge to the stars and the very foundations of Arda -

Then he bends double, clutching at the wound in his stomach and gasping in pain.

Tyelkormo and Carnistir grab him and lower him gently to the ground.

The echoes of his last glorious defiance die slowly in the charged air, clinging desperately to life even as their maker lies motionless on the ground, eyes closed and sucking shallow, rattling breaths. I take his head in my lap, kneeling in the dirt, and wipe blood from his mouth with my sleeve. Atarinkë sits beside him and grips his hand while Makalaurë helps Tyelkormo support his chest. Ambarussa hold his other hand. Carnistir stands as a sentinel before his feet, still-drawn sword glittering pale in the light as a warning to others that might approach.

Atar hisses in pain and takes a shuddering breath. I can see blood smearing on Atarinkë's knees as he kneels in the dirt, holding my father's grime-covered hand in his own.

"It's alright, atar," he says hoarsely. "We are here. We are all here."

Tyelkormo pushes a sweaty strand of hair from atar's forehead, hands uncertain as if unused to tenderness. And me, I cradle my father's head like a child in my arms, ignoring the blood matting his hair and rubbing off on my tunic.

The pale silver of his eyes kindles and grows dark with fire, flashing with a dangerous, greedy light from within. His callused fingers tighten vice-like upon Atarinkë's wrist, so much that my brother flinches.

Then atar's head snaps back to expose his throat and his body convulses, back arching as his mouth opens in a silent scream.

A flare of hungry light rears from within him.

And his skin seems to split and crumble, white-hot flame licking up from between the cracks in his soot-stained armor and glowing from his eyes. My hands are rent with searing pain and I let go of his head, reeling backwards as my brothers' cries of shock sound distantly, but the body is already falling into ash - slipping through my fingers like fine dust scattered on the wind, like the sand at Alqualondë where we played as children.

I can barely hear the animal wail of pain from Atarinkë for the rushing in my ears. Carnistir throws his arms around him and pulls on him and they are united for once in their common grief, twisted faces and scraping sobs.

The world spins and Tyelkormo grabs at my arm, mouth moving furiously as he stares wildly at the place where - mere moments ago - our father lay. He clutches the fabric of my cloak in his fingers like it is a lifeline and Makalaurë is yelling in despair beside me, tears pouring down his cheeks, but I hear nothing. Ambarussa hold each other and weep.

I fall to my knees and without ever having decided to I am hugging Tyelko, gripping, almost tearing at his tunic as my shoulders shake with the shuddering breath of tears. Makalaurë pulls on my arm and suddenly we are all together, all of us touching and crying and enduring this pain, the agonizing empty ache that atar himself felt not too long ago when Finwë fell - but Finwë was not _my_ father, and how could Fëanáro truly be gone?

Many minutes pass and the sharp grief fades to dull numbness and raw throats and _how could this have happened_ -

Atarinkë turns his tear-streaked face towards me.

"What now?" he asks, flat silver eyes boring into me as he stands, wiping ash from his fingers, and I realize that all my brothers are looking to me.

I feel a weight as of a thousand mountains of iron drop onto my shoulders.

I am King.


End file.
